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Grand Theft Auto V: Why we'd kill to get it
20 September 2013, by Andy Ruddock
front of 500 other customers by posing as police
officers. As reporters noted, they were acting out
exactly the sort of scenario that GTA V lets them
rehearse.
The New Yorker magazine has weighed into the
controversy. It concurs that games are art. It
acknowledges that, like great literature, gaming lets
us contemplate what it might be like to be other
sorts of people. It agrees that there is social value
in this capacity.
The just-released Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most
hotly anticipated videogames of all time. But how does it
inform the debate around videogame violence? Credit:
Antonio Rubio
The blockbuster videogame launch of Grand Theft
Auto V was met with a fanfare of confusing
messages. Gamers were promised the familiar diet
of salacious content: players are free, so we are
told, to drive drunk and exploit sex workers.
GTAV is the latest in the Grand Theft Auto series of video
However, experts tell us that "GTA is essentially games, which are noted for their violent gameplay.
the Sopranos of videogames". Are we being Credit: SMADE Media
offered the same old schlock, or are fans about to
have an experience that will solidify gaming as an
art form?
All the New Yorker asks is, when an online GTA V
A more pertinent question is this: why are we being forum allegedly contains a discussion on whether
presented by these conflicting ideas, and what do players should be able to kidnap and rape women –
they mean? become virtual Ariel Castros if you will – have
things gone too far?
Unsurprisingly, the new title has spawned stories
about real crime. In the United Kingdom, three Regrettably, the New Yorker story doesn't tell us
teens have been arrested for allegedly stabbing much about this alleged conversation. What
and robbing a man as he walked home from happened after someone posted the wish to include
purchasing his copy at a special midnight launch. sexual assault in the game? Was that person
roundly criticised for abusing a title that encourages
As ever, things are bigger and better in America. In us to think about the morality of violence? Was the
New York, three other young men commandeered player taken to task for bearing attitudes that had
a police car, drove to a gaming store, and cut in no place in that community? There are many
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reasons for thinking this might have happened. To in social imaginations. Back in March, the United
understand why, we have to think about the history States suggested that Kim Jong-Un's military
of media and audiences. strategy was inspired by Call of Duty. In January,
Prince Harry was criticised for likening attacking the
Predictably, the release of GTA V reignited the Taliban to playing XBox. And, of course, gaming
wrangle over links between gaming, crime and was dragged into the post-Newtown debate about
violence. These fears can be lanced with a simple gun control in the US.
observation: the mini crime wave around the launch
has been carried by people who want to play it. What all of this means is that the release of Grand
GTA V is a sort of capital. Theft Auto V isn't about tired debates on
videogames, or about kids who do desperate things
Gaming, like every medium since early cinema, is to get it. It's about how videogames are vehicles for
valued as a social experience. Having access to thinking about responsibility, well-being, society
media and having access to the pleasures of and its future. Beneath the apparent mayhem, the
friendship, community and status are one and the GTA V story is about how different sorts of media
same. This has always been so. violence encourage introspection on what the world
is like, and how we would like it to be.
In the 1920s, media researchers worried that
gangster films might inspire juvenile delinquency. This story is published courtesy of The
But when they studied teenagers watching James Conversation (under Creative Commons-
Cagney and crew, they discovered that being in the Attribution/No derivatives).
cinema was far more important than paying
attention to what was on-screen. Kids went to the
movies to be with other kids.
By the 1940s, it was becoming clear that reading
the paper, listening to the radio, and watching
movies was an important way of winning respect
from your peers. Knowing about the latest fashion,
newest stars and most controversial political events
was a great way to win trust and esteem from Source: The Conversation
people you cared about.
Come the 1980s, fans were using their love of cult
titles – such as Star Trek and Star Wars – to build
vibrant communities that only existed in relation to
media. The identities they adopted in these groups
more meaningful than the "proper" ones society
gave them.
Gamers know all of this. Attacks on games are
attacks on gamers: who they are, and how they fit
into the world. The launch of GTA V isn't just the
release of yet another title: it is an eagerly
anticipated cultural event that dramatises significant
political conflicts. Here, gamers demand the right to
be heard as people who have important things to
say about the world.
A brief history of 2013 underlines why games count
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APA citation: Grand Theft Auto V: Why we'd kill to get it (2013, September 20) retrieved 13 March 2021
from https://phys.org/news/2013-09-grand-theft-auto.html
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